CHANDIGARH: Three miscreants kidnapped a businessman in his Mercedes SUV at gunpoint from Sector 9 and released him near Elante Mall after taking a ransom of Rs 3 lakh and fled with his SUV late tonight.

MUMBAI: Aamir Khan''s big release this year - "Thugs of Hindostan" - is nearing completion as the superstar says the last leg of shooting remains, which will be wrapped up in Rajasthan by the end of next month.

DEHRADUN: The newly-elected MLAs have spent just 12 per cent of the funds released under the MLA Local Area Development fund (MLALAD) for the financial year 2017-18, which will end on March 31.

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Neena Sharma

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, February 21

The newly-elected MLAs have spent just 12 per cent of the funds released under the MLA Local Area Development fund (MLALAD) for the financial year 2017-18, which will end on March 31.

While Finance Minister Prakash Pant has spent just 1 percent of the fund, Ministers for State Dhan Singh Rawat and Rekha Arya have not spent a single penny from the MLALAD funds allocated to them. An RTI application revealed that a sum of Rs 195.25 crore was released for 71 MLAs elected in 2017. Of this amount, only Rs 23.29 crore has been spent. Most of the MLAs have shown little or no interest in utilising the funds to develop their constituencies.

So much so that of the 71 elected and nominated MLAs atleast 21 MLAs, including BJP’s Rekha Arya, Dhan Singh Rawat, Saurabh Bahuguna, Rajesh Shukla, Dilip Singh Rawat, Sanjeev Arya and Congress’ Indira Hirdayesh, Mamta Rakesh, Harish Dhami, Manoj Rawat and Karan Mahra did not spend a single penny. Around 6 MLAs have not even taken the initiative of selecting the works for development.

GIG Mann, a nominated BJP MLA, has spent 64 per cent of the amount allocated to him for this financial year, while Congress MLA from Purola Rajkumar has spent 63 per cent and chief minister TS Rawat has also spent 50 per cent of the funds till December.

DEHRADUN: Uttarakhand Congress is all set to take to social media in a big way to counter BJP’s challenge in run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. From day one, the Congress has found itself wanting on social media front even as the BJP has always utilised this platform to its benefit.

DEHRADUN: In a show of solidarity with family members of deceased transporter Prakash Pandey, who committed suicide in front of state BJP headquarters in Dehradun some time back, Leader of Opposition Indira Hridayesh today handed over an amount of Rs 7.25 lakh as financial aid to his widow Kamla Pandey.

DEHRADUN: Within a span of six months, another incident of chlorine gas leakage took place on the Rajpur road-situated water works unit of the Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan in Dehradun. The timely action prevented the mishap, this time.

DEHRADUN: The IAS Association of Uttarakhand has condemned the assault on the Chief Secretary of NCT, Anshu Prakash, by an AAP MLA. In a statement, the IAS association of Uttarakhand has demanded immediate arrest of culprits.

NEW DELHI: The Rs 1,384-crore tunnel project has been approved in Uttarakhand as part of the ‘Char Dham’ project to connect Kedarnath, Badrinath, Yamunotri and Gangotri. The tunnel will reduce the travel distance from Dharasu to Yamunotri by about 20 km and travel time by about an hour.

DEHRADUN: A delegation of senior Army officers from Sub Area (Dehradun) today met Chief Secretary Utpal Kumar Singh. The meeting came in the backof the claims made by the officers in the Chief Minister’s security that obstacles were put up at the site of landing of Chief Minister TS Rawat’s helicopter at the GTC helipad.

DEHRADUN:A major controversy has erupted over the complaint lodged with the police by Chief Security Officer (Chief Minister’s security) alleging that army men had blocked the landing site at the GTC helipad (Dehradun Cantonment) by putting up drums which prevented the official helicopter carrying the Chief Minister, who was returning from a visit to Uttarkashi last evening.

Perhaps most important of all, given Le Corbusier's overall intentions in Chandigarh, was the so-called 'Open Hand' hovering on a mast like a gigantic wind vane, although the irreverent observer cannot help thinking of a base-ball glove.